d. This architect, like the majority of his contemporaries,
misunderstood and despised the Gothic style, with which he had little
real sympathy; he drew out designs, which still exist, for converting
Westminster Abbey into an Italian church, just as Inigo Jones had done
with the exterior of the nave of old S. Paul's, but we cannot be too
thankful that this abominable suggestion was never carried out.

[Illustration: An English Renaissance Church.
S. Stephen's, Walbrook, London. Generally considered to be
Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece. _From an Engraving dated 1806._]

With King George III. on the throne our ancestors contented themselves
with dull, but substantial, buildings of which some hard things have
been written, but they were at least respectable and free from sham,
while the churches, although not elegant, were well-built and occasionally
picturesque, as we see by the perfect little building of this date at
Billesley, Warwickshire.

The eighteenth century pseudo-classical abominations and sham Gothic, so
favoured by Horace Walpole and his admirers, can be briefly dismissed.
A more rampant piece of absurdity than that of erecting imitations of
portions of Greek temples and adapting them for Christian worship it
is difficult to imagine, and in the Pavilion at Brighton, Marylebone
Church, and the "Extinguisher" Church in Langham Place we even surpassed
in bad taste and vulgarity all the absurdities of the Continental
architecture produced by the French Revolution.

[Side note: Barry and Pugin.]

Two men now came on the scene who, united, were destined to bring some
kind of order out of this chaos. Barry and Pugin were both scholars and
architects, for while the former rather favoured the classical style he
thoroughly understood the Gothic, while Pugin was a thorough mediaevalist,
a true artist, and a bold exponent in his "_Contrasts_" of a complete
return to mediaeval architecture as the only possible cure for the evils
which had crept into the art of building.

Barry's idea, which was perhaps the more practical, was to correct by
careful study the errors into which the later exponents of both Classic
and Gothic architecture had fallen, and endeavour by well thought out
modifications to evolve a style more suitable to modern requirements.
Pugin, however, would have none of the evil thing, and although he
supplied his friend with designs for the details and woodwork of the
Houses of Parliament which